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Toward Economic Sociology/Socio-Economics? Sociological Components in Contemporary Economics and Implications for Sociology

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Abstract

The paper argues and shows that much of contemporary economics undergoes a certain trend toward economic sociology or socio-economics, in virtue of increasingly acknowledging and incorporating various sociological components and influences. The paper identifies and considers at least four major related indicators of such a trend. These are, first, the revival of economic sociology or social economics; second, the renewal of the economic sociology of the market; third, the return of socio-economic institutionalism; and the rediscovery of cultural factors in the economy and markets. The paper suggests that in virtue of such a tendency at least in part contemporary economics appears increasingly congruent with modern economic sociology rather than with sociological rational choice theory. It aims to contribute to a more adequate account and understanding of pertinent recent tendencies in economics in respect of their implications for contemporary economic and other sociology. The paper infers that the renewal of economic sociology both within contemporary economics and sociology provides the fertile ground for interdisciplinary collaboration between economists and sociologists today, just as its early version did in the past.

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Notes

  1. Solow (1990a, 275-82) says ‘I disagree with the notion of economics as physics’ and suggests that because ‘different social institutions impose different constraints on what constitutes acceptable behavior’ a more appropriate concept is ‘sociological economics’. Hodgson (2000) suggests that ‘if economics was the study of the economy, then ‘sociological economics’ would be a more accurate and better term’.

  2. Nelson (1994,111) states that modern evolutionary economic theorists ‘have backed away from rational choice theory’ for a variety of reasons. Moreover, North (2005,4) suggests that the ‘rationality assumption has served economists (and other social scientists) well for a limited range of issues in micro theory but is a shortcoming in dealing with [other] issues. Indeed the uncritical acceptance of the rationality assumption is devastating for most of the major issues confronting social scientists and is a major stumbling block in the path of future progress.’

  3. Taussig was also the editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics in which Parsons published his paper on ‘sociological elements’ in economic theory as well as other papers during the 1930s.

  4. Citations for early economists and sociologists pertinent to economic sociology, for example, Jevons, Say, Mill, and Comte, Durkheim and Weber are not given for reasons of space and assumed to be commonly known, but can be provided on request.

  5. Similarly, J. S. Mill adopts, elaborates, and amplifies Say’s initial concept of ‘social economy’ as the true nature of ‘political economy’ in view of the actual existence of the ‘economy of societies’ in his own conception of the ‘science of social economy’ followed by Walras’, Wicksell’s and Cassel’s concepts of ‘social economy’, Wieser’s ‘social economics’, etc. within neoclassical marginalist economics.

  6. Relatedly, since its invention ‘social economics’ is considered one of the branches of economics, alongside ‘pure’ and applied economics (Walras, Wicksell), and even the true economic science in general (Say, Cassel), or a comprehensive social science equivalent to Comte’s sociology and thus embracing traditional ‘political economy’ as its branch (Mill). In recent times, social economics has retained its status as either an integral branch of economics, along with ‘pure’ economic theory, or the genuine, proper kind and approach of economic science overall (but not or rarely as a comprehensive social science).

  7. Chamberlin (1951,135), in his influential theory of monopolistic competition seen as the prevalent type of market structure, observes that in the latter ‘many situations are indeterminate when account is taken only of the economic variables involved [but] rendered determinate only by the influence of non-economic factors’.

  8. Wicksteed’s full statement is: ‘The better we understand the true function of the market in its widest sense, the more fully shall we realize that it never has been left to itself, and the more deeply shall we feel it never must be. Economics must be the handmaid of sociology.’

  9. Hodgson (2000) comments that Coase’s’definition of economics in terms of ‘social institutions’ can be seen as being very close to Durkheim's definition of [general] sociology and Schumpeter's definition of economic sociology.’

  10. The ‘new’ institutional, more precisely transaction-cost, economics adopted the concept of ‘transaction’ from the ‘old’ institutional economics, specifically Commons (Williamson 2000; Hodgson 1998), while inventing that of ‘transaction costs’ perhaps already logically implied or dormant in the latter.

  11. In general, North (1915,796) points to some ‘important sociological implications imbedded’ in Ricardo’s seemingly pure economics.

  12. Secondarily, this inevitably yields the dilemma or ‘food for thought’ for sociologists and other non-economists importing, as well as ‘imperial’ economists exporting, the ‘rational choice’ model as the panacea--how logically consistent and actually sustainable is to continue to do so if this ‘cure-all’ increasingly breaks down or fails even in economics itself?

  13. Sen (1990,266) cautions that rational choice tools ‘don't apply very well outside of economics [and] they don't apply very well inside economics either [as] do not have much predictive and explanatory power even in economics. You cannot first ignore the enormous impact of sociological factors in economics and think that you have succeeded with the economic analysis, and then try to apply this narrow economic analysis outside the field of economics.’

  14. Akerlof (1990,70) remarks that economists using the standard rational choice model ‘often think that the economic model is the world [and] then go out and merrily estimate things which they should never thought of estimating in the first place. That is why you can get a kind of economics which is very blind and foolish’, so to extend the latter beyond to sociology is a flagrant non sequitur.

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    Milan Zafirovski

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Zafirovski, M. Toward Economic Sociology/Socio-Economics? Sociological Components in Contemporary Economics and Implications for Sociology. Am Soc 47, 56–80 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-015-9289-2

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